Tuesday, February 12, 2013

TTYU Retro: When do we need to know what a character looks like?

I used to think that it was really, really important to know what
characters looked like. So important that I wanted to make sure that I
described each one as soon as he or she appeared. I would draw pictures
of each of my characters so I could understand what I wanted to
describe.

Now that I've been writing for a while, I realize the answer to this question is less clear-cut. It has nuances.

Before I hit nuances, though, I will say this: it is not necessary to describe your main character on the first page.
Sometimes you can get through an entire short story with only a very
minimal sense of what the character looks like. So back away from the
mirror scenes, folks, before you make your readers scream, "cliché!"

Right, then. When is it important to know what a character looks like? Here are some factors to consider:

1. In which genre are you writing?
If you are writing romance, the appearance of the main characters
particularly is very, very important. Typically, so is the type of
clothing they wear. You will also find the trend toward describing
clothing and appearance in gothic and steampunk contexts, and sometimes in alternate history. In other
genres, whether or not you describe appearance will depend on other
factors. Which leads me to...

2. How much of the character's appearance can be supported using existing reader expectations?
If you are writing in mainstream genres or in genres (like historical)
that access existing sets of technology, fashion, etc. then you can take
advantage of that existing knowledge in your reader and evoke more than
you describe. If you are working in science fiction, fantasy or
steampunk where the presence of one thing doesn't necessarily imply the
presence of another, you may need to put effort into describing more
detail in order to defeat incorrect assumptions.

The next set of questions has to do with the nature of the characters in question.

3. Is this an omnisciently observed character, a point of view character or a secondary character?
This is probably the single most important question to answer. If you're
using an omniscient narrator, the narrator is the one deciding what
visual details of the main character and secondary characters readers
need to see. If you're using limited point of view, then what details of
secondary characters get described will depend on the mental states,
perceptiveness and judgment of the point of view character. And what
details of the point of view character get described will depend on how
aware that character is of his/her own appearance.

4. If this person is a secondary character, will he/she appear in the story more than once and need to be recognizable?
A character who will need to be recognized later needs to have some
characteristic that stands out and is noticed by the point of view
character. This feature does not have to be visual, but it often is, and
it must be included in the initial description. For example, you might
have a character who will be "a guard with a crooked nose" the first
time and "the guard with the crooked nose" thereafter.

5. If this person is a point of view character, what aspects of
his/her personality lend themselves to a concern with appearance?

The only time you really want a person looking in a mirror is when that
person has a habit of looking in mirrors to check his/her appearance.
The reasons for checking the appearance will affect how the appearance
is described, and they need not occur on the first page where a
character appears, but should appear at the point where the concern with
appearance is most relevant. A lady might be concerned about whether
she looks right for a party and check her makeup in a mirror before
walking in, or she might just touch her cheek with one finger
unconsciously. I have a character who has to check his appearance
constantly so that his boss won't freak out. His self-descriptions are
quite detailed but have nothing to do with vanity or the public's
opinion.

6. If this person is a point of view character, are there any aspects
of his/her appearance which will affect his/her perceptions, judgments,
or actions?
When you are using a limited - particularly a deep internal - point of
view, and particularly if you're working with a character who doesn't
really care about his/her appearance, then this is the question you
should be asking. I have a character with very short legs who is taller
than the people he's speaking to when he is sitting down, but shorter
when he stands up - so I need to be clear about whether he's looking up
or down at people at different points. My character Rulii from "Cold
Words" is a member of the downy-furred race of the Aurrel, which is
enormously important in the story, but not because it's a matter of how
he looks. It affects his behavior, his fear of cold, his fear of shame,
and his desire for justice (because his race is downtrodden). Those
aspects of appearance which affect the way a character perceives things,
judges things, or behaves, must be included - but the best way to
include them is by demonstrating the effect they have on the character
rather than stepping outside the character to observe them.

7. Are there any questions of appearance that readers are likely to get wrong?
This is a funny one. A character in one of my unpublished novels is very
pale and has blond hair, but when my writing group first read it, many
of them picked him as having dark hair because a) he is a mysterious
character and b) I didn't make explicit mention of his hair color early
enough. This is one that you might be able to take care of just by
including the basics of eye and hair color that Western readers will be
looking for, or it may be something that comes up in critique.

Finally, this seems like the perfect place to address Garrett Anderson's recent question:

"What sorts of strategies would you recommend in describing a character
to an audience when the adjectives would not exist in your fictitious
world? For example, if I have a character whom I want to look Asian, but
there is no such place in my fictitious universe, what are some
strategies to convey the appearance? Maybe that's not the best example,
but basically, if you want a certain look, and you don't want to use real-world references."

I recommend a few steps. First, ask yourself if this particular
appearance is absolutely necessary to your portrayal of the character.
If it isn't, don't worry about it - just give a few basic
characteristics like maybe dark hair and leave the rest up to your
reader. If it is, keep reading.

First, create a sense in your mind of what the character looks like
physically. Ask yourself what aspects of that appearance would be
noticeable to a resident of your world. Those are the ones you will want
to include in your description.

Second, and very importantly, think about why it is that
residents of your world would notice these physical characteristics of
your character. What is it about that person that stands out relative to
all the people around? Does he or she resemble a person of a particular
nationality local to the world in question? Does the character's
appearance give observers a "vibe" like the one that an Asian appearance
would give you? Where does that vibe come from? What associations are
people going to make with that appearance when they see it? Those
associations have to be grounded in the world you have created.

I actually have a character whom I imagine as vaguely Asian-looking. I
don't describe him at all until the third page of his opening chapter.
You'll notice (and laugh at me no doubt) because this is a mirror moment
(not a whole scene, thank goodness). This description comes at the
point when he's just finished showering and dressing before a job
interview, and gotten into his black silk suit:

"He plucked up his favorite tailed comb and trained his dark hair into
its ponytail, which thanks to Kiit's precise trimming, fell just outside
his collar. At the mirror he shared with his bunkmate, he painted the
small black circle between his eyebrows, cleaned his makeup brush and
shut it into the box of implements atop his dresser."

Most of his "vibe" comes from his attitudes and his actions rather than
his appearance. If readers don't see him the way I do, that's fine with
me.

2 comments:

Mirror scenes work best, from what I've noticed, when they convey more about the personality rather than the actual appearance of the character. Alberich in Exile's Honor stares into a pool of water in the first chapter after a battle with some bandits. It's very introspective and part memory as he tries to analyze what makes him different from his peers as though the difference of personality might show on his face.

I have a pseudo mirror snippet in one of my stories, where there's a mirror present, but my character avoids looking at it because she knows what she'll see and doesn't want to. Not only does the avoidance provide insight into her personality, it also leads into a hint about what her upbringing was like.

When do you describe? When it matters - to the describer. When the describer naturally thinks or speaks along those lines.

When there is a physical difference from what the reader might otherwise expect.

Maybe when you're going to connect a stereotype that is appearance-based - or its opposite. A fiery red-head - or a red-head so meek you'd think she was trying to put her hair out by the way she pulled her knit cap on.

I like the mirror in a specific place: for a narcissistic character. When appearance is a very important part of the character's job description - an actress whose physical beauty is her meal ticket.

As for the vaguely Asian character, accuracy of description - details like epicanthic folds, angle of eyes and eyebrows, posture, slightness of stature - all factual details, can preclude using a term such as 'Asian,' especially for an alien.

Write 'Asian' in the rough draft - then revise (see your post on metaphors) for a fresh, non-stereotyped description with some attitude.

Readers don't know how much fun it is to specifically go out and dance around a description, editing it to get it just right for both the actual description and all the nuances.